GCR 'Steam Railway' Gala

I tend to use the 24bit, But I have also used the 17bit and even the one below that, tricky to tell the difference as they all look good. Cinema mode gives a different feel to the picture, deeper colours etc, I filmed all The GCR gala in this mode for the first time, some of the longer shots are not as sharp as normal and in poor light as the Cinema mode is darker it gets tricky, however you do get a much richer feel and I think it does look more like a film on TV in colour around the 60's. There's 6 part in all, so stay tuned and you can make up you own mind.

 

Six parts! A lot of viewing there but I do wonder if the resolution on YouTube would show the difference.

There is virtue in having video looking more like film, but I'm not sure that a 625 line tele would do it justice. An HD tele and a Blueray player might.

I've decided to use the 'aperture priority' function as I used to do when I did stills. That way, provided the aperture is set midway - on my HG10 camera f4, I should be sure of getting the best lens performance, therefore the best colour saturation and focus.

Thanks for the conversation, most informative.

Regards

 

I took a look at Part 3 of your series on the GCR and thought it is a nice film; thanks.

I think though that the case for 'cinema mode' is still unproven. For me I couldn't see enough difference to make a difference if you get my drift. Yes the image is darker so there is a greater colour saturation, but I got the impression that the firmware in the camera is also restricting the responsiveness of the 'light meter' (to use an old term) so it doesn't lighten the image as I would prefer. The exposure seems to stay the same throughout the sequence. Perhaps that is precisely the point of 'cinema mode', that it uses just one exposure, perhaps, or more likely certainly, the first exposure it measures ie it is emulating a manual exposure. Not sure about this innovation, reflected light changes as the camera pans round, so I would expect the exposure to change too. 'Cinema mode' has a little of a 'back to the future' in it!

It's interesting that you have used 24b on your old Canon NTSC camera. The greatest bit rate I can find on my PAL HG10 is 15mbps on the HXP setting. Does your new camera which I think you said is an HG11 still have 24mbps?

Regards

 

Three very good, atmospheric films of what must have been a wonderful gala, with an interesting selection of locos, and the train crews obviously enjoying the opportunities for giving it welly on the flat that the GCR, alone among preserved lines, provides.

Not really a quibble, but you might like to change the caption that said "42085 8F".

 

Most of the video you see in the internet, certainly on YouTube, has "progressive" frames, where the whole of the frame is shown at once. Even if you submit "interlaced" video (where each frame is shown as two "fields", the first containing all the odd-numbered lines, then all the even-numbered lines), YouTube and similar sites convert it to progressive. 50i becomes 25p or maybe even 24p. Therefore, you are unlikely to be able to notice a difference between PennySteam's latest offerings and other similar videos, except perhaps in image sharpness.

People who intend their video primarily for the internet will often shoot progressive frames from the beginning, to avoid the quality drop from later conversions. If you want the HD 1080-line resolution, that limits you to 25 fps on "PAL" cameras (24 or 30 on "NTSC" cameras) and hence the film-like jerky motion. Some of the more expensive JVC and Panasonic HD cameras (and maybe Sony, e.g. EX1?) have the option of shooting 720-lines at 50 progressive frames per second, which gives even smoother motion than 50 interlaced fields per second. 720-lines resolution is also perfect for YouTube, etc, since it requires no re-sizing. However, the cameras cost £3k each, or more.

There is much more to achieving a "cinema look" than just using a slower frame-rate. The most difficult thing for little video cameras to achieve is the shallow depth-of-field, which allows film-makers to focus on a subject in the foreground and leave the background blurred. Depth of field is related to the size of the recorded image. In a film camera, that's the size of the frame on the film (16mm, 35mm, etc). In a video camera, that's the size of the CCD or CMOS detector chip, which in consumer cameras is often 1/5" or smaller. Actually, the Canon HG-series AVCHD and HV-series HDV cameras have larger chips than most, but you still need to use a long telephoto and wide aperture to achieve this effect.

 

Thank you 'Steamage' for your comments. As a newcomer of 4yrs to the video business after spending 40 yrs or so taking stills I'm still trying to catch up on the jargon and what it means.

My camera, a Canon HG10 (the bottom of the range, but it produces excellent results), is as a default set to 50i, but it can be set to 25p. In now gather from your comments that the 'i' in '50i' equals 'interlaced' and the 'p' in 25p equals 'progressive'. Ok, so far so good. But I am also shooting in 1080 lines @ 50i as per the camera's default set up; here I'm getting confused as I understand from your post that if I want to do 1080 lines I should be on 25p, please could you clarify?

As I shoot primarily to produce DVDs rather than YouTube films (although most of my stuff does go on YouTube - it's just very tightly edited for the 10min limitation), I gather that I should be shooting in 50i mode. Is this true or have I got hold of the wrong end of the stick?

In the book of destructions Canon talk about a 'cinema effect' without actually offering the slightest clue as to what this phrase actually means, of how outcome might differ from any other setting; could you offer some insight, please?

I have been using the camera in it's 'Program AE' mode but I have now changed to 'Aperture' mode to get the best performance from the lens. I do anticipate the camera telling me in the winter galas that there isn't enough light, but tough, I'll change if I have to!

Sorry about the list of questions, not the most social way of carrying on a conversation, but I'd be most obliged if you could answer them.

MTIA

Regards

 

Just received latest copy of the Great Central Periodical News Issue, Main Line, in which a letter was included, advising that a serious incident occurred in Sunday 11th October during the Steam Railway Gala. A photographer sustained injuries to his upper arm when he was struck by a carriage footboard of a train travelling towards Loughborough near the A6 bridge. The man in question was a permit holder and was wearing a GCR approved Hi-Viz jacket. The letter goes on to advise what you should and shouldn't do.

But what on earth was the guy doing so close to the running line??? close enough to get struck by the carriage footboard??? Lucky?